Page 36 - Plastics News Issue November - 2024
P. 36
FEATURE NEWS
on plastics composition and prop-
erties; Michael Shaver, a polymer
chemist at the University of Man-
chester in the UK who has focused
his work on improving mechanical
recycling; and Mark Hahn, from the
Woods Hole Oceanographic Insti-
tution, who has an extensive back-
ground in environmental toxicology.
Lavender Law also spoke about the
paper with the Association of Plas-
tic Recyclers, which owns Resource
Recycling, in a recent episode of its
Recycled Content podcast.
The group’s paper offers guidance for plastics
manufacturers to engage in cross-sector collab- Bridging the gap between industry, research
oration to address the issue of additives in the At the start, the group identified its audience:
recycling process.
people in the decision tree of making materials,
An oceanographer with an interest in keeping including resin producers, packaging manufac-
plastics out of the water, Lavender Law said that turers and even brand owners.
although plastic pollution has become a huge Next, they determined their focus: addressing
topic in the public consciousness and in the poli- chemical additives in plastics that can leak out
cy realm, “a lot of the discussions end up neces- and wind up in recycled materials.
sarily being quite high-level.”
The composition of packaging plastics begins
The group wanted to explain what realistic and with the chemical companies, but at the inter-
practical steps could be taken today rather than mediate stage converters contribute additives
in theory or at an indistinct future time, she said. to meet performance requirements specific to
Bringing in different perspectives and sets of ex- each end use. At its core, the academic paper
pertise, “people that don’t normally talk to each shows that the resin process gains complexity
other,” was a first step in putting together a use- as it moves through the value chain, “and you
ful tool. For example, chemical engineers don’t lose track of what’s going on,” Lavender Law
necessarily recognize the environmental con- said.
cerns of their developments in the lab.
Naturally, the way a MRF operator views a spe-
The four co-authors include Lavender Law, a re- cific piece of packaging is very different from
search professor at the Sea Education Associa- the way the brand owner looks at it. For exam-
tion; Margaret Sobkowicz, a professor of plastics ple, for decades Sprite was bottled in distinctive
engineering at the University of Massachusetts, green PET to meet Coca-Cola’s marketing ob-
Lowell, who provided an intimate knowledge
jectives. But the post-consumer green PET was
36 PLASTICS NEWS November 2024
